


Starcrossed

by lesbianophelia



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Games, F/M, older brother!Peeta
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-01
Updated: 2014-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-15 18:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2239848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianophelia/pseuds/lesbianophelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one is sure what to make of it when the two tributes from District Twelve confess their love for each other the night before the Games — least of all their older siblings. In-Panem AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starcrossed

The worst part is not being able to volunteer, but that’s closely followed by the fact that she can’t see her sister when her name is called. That doesn’t stop her from running for the roped off section for the tributes.   
  
She’s pushed back instantly, though. Because she’s a whole year too late to be able to help her sister. It happened too late, and Katniss is  _powerless_  to do anything but to watch as her sister takes shaking steps up to the stage. She stands beside Effie Trinket, eyes fixed firmly on the ground while the call for volunteers goes unanswered.

 **20, 19, 18, 17.  
  
** “It’s okay,” Prim says. Her eyes are red-rimmed with tears, but she’s trying particularly hard not to cry. Katniss can tell, if only based on the way that her sister refuses to look at her. “I know about plants, right? Maybe I could make it.”  
  
“You could,” Katniss assures her. Wipes at her tears roughly. Katniss tries to cram years worth of hunting information into the few measly moments they’ve been allowed to say goodbye. Prim always used to hate it when she tried to bring her into the woods, but now Katniss is thinking that she should have brought her anyway.   
 **  
16, 15, 14, 13.** _  
  
_ She stumbles into Peeta Mellark’s chest when the peacekeeper yanks her out of the room. Peeta’s arm wraps around her back, and then pulls away just as quickly.   
  
His hand ghosts against her shoulder again, maybe in an attempt to comfort her. “Hey,” he says. “You need to get out of here?”   
  
She looks up at him, startled, and steps back. Peeta’s eyes are rimmed red, as if he had cried when he said goodbye to his younger sibling, as well.   
  
“I was thinking of getting some air, myself. Not so far that I can’t see them off, of course … but it’s sort of suffocating in here.”   
  
She pulls away a little bit further, but she ends up standing beside him again when the train leaves.   
 ** _  
_12, 11, 10, 9.  
** _  
_She’s sitting on the ground in the Square, watching the screens as the lead-up to the Tribute Parade begins. As always, there’s footage of the trains rolling into the station. She watches it eagerly, desperate for just a glance at her sister.  
  
She doesn’t realize Peeta Mellark is standing beside her until she hears him clear his throat. “You mind if I sit here?”   
  
She doesn’t answer. He spreads out a little knitted blanket and sits on the edge of it.   
  
“You can sit on it, if you want,” he offers.   
  
She doesn’t want to. And she doesn’t want to sit and watch with Peeta, because she doesn’t want him to  _talk_ through the whole thing, because she’s so desperate to see Prim. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to start conversation again when the actual show begins. District Twelve has become something of a challenge since a stylist named Cinna discovered to use fire in the costumes. He was promoted after a couple of years, and a few different stylists have taken the initiative to ask for Twelve, and while the costumes haven’t been  _horrible,_ they haven’t been particularly good.   
  
Her sister isn’t a coal miner. Or stark naked, painted with coal dust. Instead, she’s the embers that are left when a fire burns low. Black and somehow red, and blue, and orange. Flickering. Dangerous. Gorgeous. Terrifying, even with the way she looks around, offering little smiles at the crowd. She blows a kiss with one of her hands, and that’s when Katniss notices that the other one is holding onto Rye Mellark. The cameras spend plenty of time focusing on them, but it’s just as well. No one in Twelve – or anywhere in the country, if the way the Capitol crowd is chanting  _Primrose, Primrose, Primrose_  is any indication – can look away from them. Even the interviews pieced together, things Prim has said about herself, things Haymitch Abernathy has said about Rye, things that their stylists have to say about the designs, between shots seem to distract from the spectacle.   
  
“Wow,” Peeta says under his breath. More to himself than to Katniss. She wouldn’t hear him if it wasn’t for the way that everyone seems to be holding their breath. Halfway through, Rye seems to get an idea. He holds his hand up – the one clasped with Prim’s. Both in the Capitol and in District Twelve, the audience cheers. Loudly.   
  
“I just  _love_ that!” Caesar Flickerman says on screen. “Look at this! Two young people saying  _I am proud I come from District Twelve. I will not be ignored_.”   
  
“Well, they certainly won’t,” Claudius returns. “District Twelve has been faring pretty well recently.”   
  
Caesar and Claudius then begin to talk amongst themselves about scores. How Haymitch has managed to get his tributes at least to the final eight these last couple of years – probably as a result of newfound determination that came when a Seam girl came in second place. District pride, and all sorts of other things that the Capitol seems to think exists when it doesn’t. It isn’t because of that their tributes have been fighting so hard. It’s because the promise of food is a powerful one when things are as hollow in Twelve as they have been recently, and no one is a stranger to the way it feels when you really need food.  
  
During the president’s speech, the camera is supposed to show shots of all of the different chariots. They make an attempt, she can tell, but they always end up on Prim and Rye. When the chariots go back into the training center, the screen is trained on the two of them.   
  
Required viewing ends at that point. Everyone starts to pack their things up. Save for Katniss and Peeta, who are still looking towards the black screens. As if they’ll turn back on and they’ll be able to see the people who they want to see most again, for even a split second. They don’t. Soon enough, the screens will be on full time. Katniss will be able to see her sister whenever she wants to. Be able to see her avoiding other tributes.   
  
 _Other tributes_. Like Rye. She looks over at Peeta Mellark, the boy with the bread from all of those years ago, and realizes that if he’s rooting for his brother to come home, as he clearly is, then he’s rooting for her sister to die.   
  
She leaves without saying goodnight.   
 _  
_ **8, 7, 6, 5, 4.  
**  
Neither of the tributes get particularly high scores. But, as the commentators are quick to speculate, it could be a strategy. She knows that nothing her sister could do would be as impressive as, say, throwing heavy stuff around. Not to the Gamemakers.   
  
Peeta Mellark comes and sits beside her during the interviews, too. She’s still reeling from her epiphany, and it’s almost enough to make her want to snap at him. To ask what he wants from her. But she doesn’t. Because this is her best chance at getting a feel of her sister’s competition. The big brute from District Two is cocky. The girl from Four is small but a little bit terrifying. The girl from Eleven is young, and reminds Katniss far too much of a younger version of Prim. Then it’s her sister. Coming out on stage and looking stunning and too old in a black gown that shimmers when the light catches it and contrasts gorgeously against her fair skin and blonde hair.   
  
She takes her seat beside Caesar and they talk a little bit. She mentions Katniss. How she promised that she would try really, really hard to win.   
  
“And is there a boy you want to come home to?” Caesar asks towards the end of the interview. Prim hesitates, and then gives an unconvincing shake of her head. “Oh, come on. Gorgeous girl like you. There has to be someone.”   
  
“Well, there is this one boy,” Prim says. “But we’d never spoken before the Reaping. Let alone … well, these last few days have been sort of a blessing.”   
  
“A blessing?” Caesar asks. No tribute has ever referred to their last few days that way. Even Katniss is leaned forward a little bit, trying to figure out what in the world her sister is talking about.   
  
“Well, I don’t think that Rye and I would have ever talked otherwise.”   
  
Caesar doesn’t even have time to process this before the buzzer is going off. Prim looks a little bit too satisfied with herself as she goes back to her seat. Rye stands up, and Katniss nearly chokes on her tongue when he kisses her hand.   
  
She turns to look at Peeta, wide eyed. Does he  _know_ about this? His eyes are fixed on the screen, but he looks about as confounded as she feels.   
  
Rye is dressed in black, too. But his smile is blindingly white when he talks about admitting to Prim the way that he’s  _always noticed her_. How she kissed him there, on the train to the Capitol, and they’ve been inseparable ever since. But to hear him tell it, it’s bad luck rather than good luck.   
  
“How are we supposed to do this now?” he asks. “How am I supposed to go in there, knowing that any time I see her might be the last?”   
 __  
 **3, 2, 1, 0.**

  
Usually, the sun is out inside the arena when the games begin. It doesn’t just give the tributes a chance to scope out the arena, but the potential sponsors, as well. This year, it is pitch black. After a moment of that, the screen take on what Katniss knows is called  _night vision_ , and she can see the tributes standing on their platforms, all shaded in whites and greens to make sure that they can be seen.   
  
Prim looks terrified.   
  
Not that Katniss blames her. She’s terrified, too. Of all of the arenas for her sister to be plunged into, this is one of the worst. The glowing numbers projected over the cornucopia to show the countdown cast a soft light on the spoils at the mouth. The ones that are there to lure the tributes into the bloodbath. Katniss bites her bottom lip so hard that she can taste blood.   
  
  
The shot lingers on her sister again, who is looking around with wide eyes. Trying to find Rye, maybe.   
  
Of course, that’s operating under the assumption that anything that was said in the interviews before the Games was true. Katniss isn’t sure about it, really.   
 _  
_She wishes that it was her. That Prim had been reaped just one year earlier, so that Katniss could volunteer in her place. Or, better, that her sister wasn’t reaped at all. _  
  
_She can’t breathe, exactly. Is this tightness in her chest _normal_? Is she having a heart attack? It doesn’t seem worth mentioning. Not with Prim there in the arena, as good as a million miles away.

She wonders if it would be more of a comfort to watch in the Square. Her house feels too big and too small all at once. Prim should be on the couch beside her. It’s too late to move now, though.   
 _  
  
_The gong sounds. It surprises no one when Rye and Prim team up inside the arena. Katniss isn’t sure what to make of it, though. Her sister will certainly be safer with someone else to help guard her in what she’s determined will be constant blackness, but when it comes time for the two to separate, will she be able to?  
  
Prim wasn’t able to realize that the cat would be a burden when she brought it home, covered in fleas and swollen with worms. In the arena, the stakes would be much higher. She’s just thinking that she isn’t sure whether or not she would trust Rye when he all but drags Prim  away from the Cornucopia, further into the safety –or danger, maybe – of the dark woods.   
  
  
When required viewing ends, Katniss moves to the Square. Fresh air will help, maybe. There are only a few other people left by the time she gets there. Peeta Mellark is one of them, but she doesn’t notice until he moves to sit down beside her. Shouldn’t he be sitting with his friends? Or at home, for that matter? She knows that he has not only a screen at the bakery, but at least a couple of family members to watch with. Is he really the only Mellark here? She doesn’t know, and she doesn’t care enough to look around.   
  
She’s suddenly not sure why she thought it would be better to watch in the Square than in the safety of her own house. But it isn’t exactly uncommon for the families of the tributes to want to be surrounded by other people. Her mother hasn’t been exactly  _despondent_ since the reaping, but she hasn’t been very good company, either.  _  
_  
She doesn’t know why she does it, but she sits down beside him. People have started to clear the area, and she could have settled in wherever she wanted. But it’s getting _easy_ to sit beside Peeta. Maybe too easy.   
  
“Rye convinced her to go further into the trees,” Peeta murmurs, eyes not leaving the screen. “He said he wants to find someplace with a tree she can climb when it’s time for them to sleep.”   
  
She nods. “Thank you.”   
  
“Yeah, sure,” he whispers. “You left after required hours finished?”   
  
She nods.   
  
“So then you missed … the girl from seven, the boy from nine, and the pair from eleven.”   
  
  
  
When the boy from Four starts stalking their siblings in the blackness, Peeta’s hand comes over to rest on top of hers. If she was thinking more clearly, she might pull away, but she doesn’t.   
  
Her hand turns over underneath his, instead, and his fingers lace through hers. She thinks the squeeze he gives her is meant to be reassuring, but it isn’t, exactly. Maybe it was just a nervous spasm. Peeta’s hand tightens around hers when the camera cuts to his younger brother. Right. They are not a team, no matter how much he seems to think they are. The rules are rules, Prim’s confession of being in love with the youngest Mellark doesn’t really matter. One of them will come home.   
  
Or, of course, there’s the possibility that  _both_ of them will come home. But not alive, of course. In plain pine boxes. Not that Katniss likes to think about that. She can’t think very far ahead. She hasn’t been able to since the day of the Reaping. First, all that mattered was  _getting_ to Prim, after the ceremony was over and they were allowed to be in the same area as her sister. Next, she had to impart every piece of knowledge she had gathered from her years in the woods.   
  
It is the sound of his sword unsheathing that alerts the two of them of his presence. Then Rye is pressing his palms against Prim’s back, guiding her to stand in front of a tree and urging her to climb. But Prim doesn’t listen, and Katniss can’t breathe while her sister distracts the boy from halfway up the tree. Just long enough for Rye to sneak up behind him and wrestle him to the ground. He gets a cut on his arm, but it isn’t horrible. It isn’t enough to stop him from tossing the other boy’s sword somewhere to the side. Or to snap his neck.  
  
The cannon sounds. All of the breath leaves Katniss’ lungs in a rush, and she goes to let go of Peeta’s hand, sure that she’s crushing his fingers, but he keeps his grip on her.    
  
“Don’t,” he whispers. “Please.”   
  
She keeps ahold of him. His brother  _did_ just save her sister, after all. But Peeta is still white as a sheet in the summer sun. That’s when she realizes what happened. Rye Mellark just made his first kill.   
  
  
  
She’s not sure if it’s because he’s always there, but Katniss ends up spending a disproportionate amount of time watching on the screens in the Square. Her family has a screen, but it isn’t  _un_ common for the families of the tributes to want to watch near others.   
  
“You would have volunteered, wouldn’t you have?” Peeta asks one day while the cameras focus on the career pack.   
  
She nods.   
  
“I thought so. As soon as her name was called, I realized what a horrible year this was for it to happen.”   
  
“Would you have?” she whispers back.   
  
“I like to think I would be brave enough to,” he says.   
  
 _So, no_ , she thinks. She tries not to let that change her opinion of him. Volunteers from Twelve are unheard of, after all, and it’s not like she managed to do anything save for throw herself towards the section roped off for tributes and be pushed back by some peacekeepers.   
  
“They could do it, you know,” he murmurs. Her eyes dart over to him and then back to the screen. They couldn’t. They  _can’t_. Not both of them.    
  
She doesn’t respond. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re born a merchant. You have time for stupid things like daydreams.   
  
He’s silent again when they get to see Prim and Rye. He doesn’t even gloat when the rules are changed, but that might be because of the stunned silence that passes between them, the way it always does when Prim and Rye kiss.   
  
  
  
She’s in the Square while Peeta records an interview. He tosses her a smile, but it doesn’t go unnoticed by the woman behind the camera. She’s pulled over to him and set on a stool beside his. He mouths a little  _sorry_  when she sits down.   
  
“Yeah, yeah, Katniss and I have been watching together,” Peeta says, reaching an arm around Katniss’ shoulders. “We think they can do it.”   
  
“I know they can,” Katniss says, even though it’s remarkably hard to speak in front of the camera. “Prim is a healer. That has to transfer to survival, right?”   
  
“It certainly has so far,” Peeta says. “I give credit to her sister.”   
  
“Oh, no. I can’t heal. She got it from our mother.”   
  
“Well, if Rye’s getting anything from our parents in there, we should expect him to bake her something any minute now.”   
  
His joke actually makes her laugh. It’s the first time that’s happened in so long, and they both share a little glance at each other. “You never know,” the interviewer says. “What was that field that the boy from Ten wandered off into? Grain?”   
  
The moment is ruined. They both turn to look at the screen behind them.   
  
“Oh!” Peeta says. “We were supposed to watch with your mother, weren’t we? I’m sorry. We have to leave now, or else we’ll be late.”   
  
It takes her a second to realize what he’s doing, but she’s more than willing to go along with it. “Right! She’ll have dinner made and everything,” she lies. His hand slips from her shoulders and then down her arm to tangle his fingers with hers, the way they’ve been ending up more and more often lately.   
  
He actually does follow her all the way to the Seam once they’ve said goodbye to the woman hosting the interview.  Peeta drags his free hand through his hair. “So … could we really watch together?” he asks.   
  
“I guess,” she says. “Our screen isn’t very good.”   
  
“Well, I just … I sort of told the whole country I’d be watching at Katniss Everdeen’s house,” he says with a sheepish smile. She hears what he  _doesn’t_ say. His mother will probably be upset with him either way, and she’s struck with a strange urge to protect him from her.   
  
“Come on, then,” she says. “I’ve already missed too much, today.”   
  
“I’m lucky you came around, or else that woman would have kept going for hours.”   
  
“I doubt that,” she says, and he raises his eyebrows at her. “She’d have to let you go eventually.”   
  
“Still,” he says.   
  
She hunted while the career pack slept, so it isn’t hard to feed Peeta, as well as her mother. She’s used to cooking for three, anyway. But she doesn’t tell him that she came on a good night. He might know anyway. He tries to refuse the bowl when she hands it to him.   
  
“Take it,” she says. “Don’t want you missing dinner just because you decided to come all the way out here to watch it.”   
  
They eat on the worn down little couch. Every so often, she notices him stealing glances around the house, and feels embarrassed. Why did she invite him in?   
  
“We could be neighbors,” he points out. “When Rye and Prim get home.”   
  
 _When._ When Rye and Prim get home. A smile ticks up the corners of her lips.   
  
“So, I’ll have you over for dinner, then,” he says. “Pay you back.”   
  
At those last three words, the smile falls from her lips. “No. You don’t … you fed me, once.”   
  
He squints at her. “When we were kids? No. That wasn’t … Katniss.”   
  
She shakes her head. It is no better to watch the screen. Not once  _they_ pop up, talking about Prim and Rye and Peeta watching at the Everdeen house. Plutarch makes a joke about there being  _something about the Everdeen girls._ Her cheeks are sore, they’re so red.   
  
But it’s a little bit more worth it when Rye and Prim receive a silver parachute, later that night, with lamb stew. When Required Viewing hours end and curfew approaches, Peeta stands up and thanks Katniss and her mother for the meal.   
  
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Katniss?” he asks. “In the Square?”   
  
She nods. “Sounds good.”   
  
“Okay,” he says. “See you then.”   
  
“See you then,” she agrees.   
  
“It’ll be over soon, I think,” he adds, lingering by the door. “Tomorrow. Maybe the next day.”   
  
  
He isn’t wrong. The Required Viewing hours are extended that next night, when they are already watching the Games. As if anyone could look away, now, with the arena almost blindingly bright for the first time in an attempt to get the tributes to drive together. It works. Prim drops her pouch of berries near the career camp, and Katniss realizes about the same time as the girl does that it was a trick.   
  
But it’s too late. Clove is already on the ground, dead.  _Nightlock_ , she thinks. It was stupid to hope that Prim would make it out of the arena without blood on her hands. Though, didn’t Rye kill the boy from Four because he was coming after Prim, in specific? The youngest Mellark has done most of the dirty work, but they been a team.   
  
And that’s how they kill the only remaining tribute. Together. As a team. Katniss doesn’t want to watch her sister wielding the sword that Rye has been carrying since he took it from the boy from Four, but she can’t look away, either. She is squeezing Peeta’s hand so hard that it must be hurting his fingers, but he is crushing hers, too, so she thinks that it should be okay.   
  
  
The day after her sister and Peeta’s brother are announced the Victors of the Hunger Games, Peeta comes to her door with a loaf of bread.   
  
“My father sent me,” he says with a little smile. “They’re trying to keep me out of the kitchen, I think. But anyway, this is for you. And your mother. And my father says congratulations.”   
  
“Oh, well, congratulations to your family, too,” Katniss returns when she takes the bread he’s offering. She’s been getting all sorts of congratulations, but she doesn’t know why. She did nothing. “Can you stay awhile?”   
  
“Yeah. Yeah, if you want me to,” he says.   
  
“My mother isn’t home. I don’t want to eat all this bread by myself.”   
  
It’s entertaining to watch Peeta eating fresh bread. Or, more entertaining than it should be, until she remembers Rye telling Prim something about a goat cheese and apple tart being  _too expensive_ for his family to eat. She slices another couple of pieces off of the loaf and pushes the plate towards him.   
  
“Prim will make goat cheese when she gets home,” she adds. “I’m not very good at it, so I’ve just been trading the milk. But you’ll like it.”   
  
He smiles. “I like  _this_.”   
  
She does, too. But she doesn’t do anything stupid like admit it. She just offers him one of those smiles that are somehow getting less and less rare in his presence.

**End Part One.**


End file.
